CDC Office of Rural Health Showcases Rural Health Initiatives

In case you missed it, the CDC released its inaugural Rural Public Health Strategic Plan in September. Our work with many of you helped us to develop a strategy to ensure rural health needs are considered in all our programs and initiatives. We are committed to using the best research and data available to develop and disseminate tailored resources and build and improve rural public health activities.

Here are some examples of CDC’s rural work and recent successes you can share with your networks:

Electronic Case Reporting (eCR). eCR is the automated, real-time exchange of case report information between electronic health records and public health agencies. This information exchange is vital for public health facilities that treat under-resourced communities like critical access hospitals (CAHs). CAHs are rural hospitals with 25 or fewer acute care inpatient beds that are typically located more than 35 miles from another hospital. The number of CAHs using eCR increased 368% between 2022 and 2024. Click here to learn more about this successful onboarding of CAHs.

Population Level Analysis and Community Estimates (PLACES). PLACES is a free CDC web tool that expands access to data for rural communities, delivering hyper-local model-based data for the entire U.S. population at 4 levels of geography. The latest release included estimates for seven new nonmedical factors for health including transportation barriers, food insecurity, and lack of social and emotional support.

Insight Net. Through CDC investments, a team at Clemson University is collaborating with Clemson Rural Health, South Carolina’s Department of Public Health, and two large health systems to integrate respiratory disease trend data with information about available medical resources and community needs. Analysis and modeling using these data elements helps the state and health systems direct resources like mobile health clinics to high-risk rural communities. This tool has the potential to reduce thousands of preventable hospitalizations and deaths, drastically increase the number of high-risk patients served, and could be applied in other rural communities once evaluated.

High Obesity Program (HOP). CDC’s HOP investments in states, universities, territories, and tribes reach rural populations with proven interventions and innovative projects. HOP is a 5-year cooperative agreement to fund 16 land-grant universities to work with community extension services to improve access to healthier foods and safe places for physical activity where 40% or more of adults have obesity. From 2018 to 2023, all HOP recipients worked with rural counties. Overall, their work reached more than 338,000 people through improved access to safe places for physical activity and over 116,000 people through improved guidelines for healthier eating.

To learn more about CDC’s rural health work, visit us online at www.cdc.gov/rural-health and contact us at ru*********@*dc.gov.

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